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The Royal Half Preview: Kings vs. Red Wings

by
The Royal Half
/ Los Angeles Kings

Disclaimer - The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Los Angeles Kings Hockey Club. All opinions expressed by The Royal Half are solely (and most likely) his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Los Angeles Kings or their Hockey Operations staff, parent company, partners, or sponsors. His current whereabouts are not known to the Kings and he has no access to information beyond the access and privileges that go along with being a half-season ticket holder

If the KINGS beat DETROIT...and the SHARKS lose in regulation to PHOENIX...

the KINGS could place no worse than the 5th Seed.

Well, there are two games left in the 2013 regular season... and it's time to talk about the most important goal that the Los Angeles Kings have yet to achieve.

Getting the comedian Retta to run their Twitter Account for a period.

For those who don't know... Retta is a comedian best known for her role as Donna on NBC's Parks and Recreation.

And much like the LA Kings... Retta is known for being awesome on Twitter. But she hasn't accepted the LA Kings offer to run their Twitter Account for a game yet... leaving some lesser known stars to do it instead. But while we wait for Retta to respond, one LA Kings fan is doing their part to make sure Retta is up to speed in her hockey knowledge.

That's right, LA Kings fan Chanelle Berlin, has started a new blog that points out helpful hints and tips to Retta in order to help her better understand the game of hockey. It's called Help A Retta Out and you should read it because it's funny. So I sat down with Chanelle to learn more about her love of Retta and her love of the LA Kings.

TRH: How long have you been an LA Kings fan?

CHANELLE: I'm a fairly recent fan. I come from a basketball-loving family, so I didn't know a thing about hockey until a college roommate took me to a Boston College vs Boston University game my freshman year. That BC vs BU game was in 2006 at Conte Forum. BU won that night. I didn't go to either school, so I didn't have any loyalties going in. I was more mesmerized by the pace overall.I only sort of followed that for a while, and then I decided to learn about the Kings after I came back to LA after graduation. It's been a heady love affair ever since.

There is a good chance that Chanelle saw Brian Boyle play that fateful night in 2006.

TRH: What is it about the sport of hockey that makes it such a heady love affair?

CHANELLE: The speed and physicality are my headline draws. Let me be real: being part of the YouTube generation means my attention span is shameful, but in hockey there's constantly something to hold my focus -- shifts to track, penalties to groan about, and goals to relive in 87000 replays per night.

These days, though, it's everything. I love the intensity of the game but I also love the atmosphere around it. I get such a rush hearing fans cheer in the arena and seeing the enthusiasm online. I love the way franchises try to always create new, interesting ways to interact with fans, and it's forever amazing to me that the game has the power to turn me and someone like Cuba Gooding, Jr into the same kind of hollering beast for a couple hours every few nights.

The best part of this photo is Tim Leiweke's reaction.

TRH: Who is your current favorite LA King and why? Favorite all-time King?

CHANELLE: Jonathan Quick appreciation life!!! His development over his career has been exciting to watch and learn about, with the 2012 playoff run obviously being when he realized his true superhero potential. (I'm starting my campaign for a Quickie cameo in the Avengers sequel next year, to be honest.)

Related to that, I'd love to tell you that my all-time favorite Kings player is Gretzky, but my goalie predilection and Google search history indicate that it's probably really Rogie Vachon.

TRH: You started a blog to help Retta take over the Kings twitter account. Why?

CHANELLE: I happen to follow both Retta and the Kings Twitter, so I saw their Twitter exchange right away and flipped out over the potential of that hilarity business. I sent out this half-joking tweet saying that I would love to apply to be Retta's teacher for Kings facts, and a friend said I that I should just do it, challenging me to create a blog.

The more I thought about it, the more fun it seemed. I set something up the next morning and ran with it just to see if I could. Plus, I think all my family and friends are tired of me talking their ears off about hockey, and this seemed like a better option than resorting to shouting at strangers on the street about how great Jonathan Quick is like the street preachers outside of Staples Center. That's still my backup plan.

TRH: As a fairly new female fan of the game, do you find that other fans tend to not take you seriously?

CHANELLE: To people who say female fans only care about looks and not the game, I'd say that I'm really sorry they have't learned about this new thing called multi-tasking. Life is so much more exciting when you objectify people and follow a puck at the same time.

I never take people who say that seriously. They expose themselves as total idiots the second they open their mouths, otherwise they'd know women make up almost half of sports viewership and still buy 70 percent of goods, so who is more important to professional sports? Me! Boom! But I have no time to argue down dumbos, so mostly I just laugh in their faces and cha cha slide out of the area.

At the same time, I can't deny that part of why I'm excited about the idea of Retta growing to like and live-tweet for the Kings is because she's a funny black woman. Hockey's great, and I enjoy myself all the time, but it'd be dope to have more people who kinda look like me to represent a fan community I love in a more visible way.

Also, she's from New Jersey, and I don't want her to root for the Devils!

Check out Chanelle's blog, Help A Retta Out... because we all know that we need someone funnier than The Royal Half tweeting for the LA Kings...

The Royal Half has been a Los Angeles Kings fan since 1988 and a Half-Season Ticket Holder since 2002. He has seen the following goaltenders play in person for the Los Angeles Kings… Kelly Hrudey, Grant Fuhr, Byron Dafoe, Jamie Storr, Stephane Fiset, Felix Potvin, Cristobal Huet, Roman Cechmanek, Mathieu Garon, Adam Hauser, Jason LaBarbera, Barry Brust, Sean Burke, Dan Cloutier, Yutaka Fukufuji, Jean-Sebastien Aubin, Erik Ersberg, Jonathan Bernier and Jonathan Quick. If you like the hockey equivalent of dirty jokes or enjoy humorous screen-grabs of NHL players and broadcasters with funny captions... man, you are going to like The Royal Half. You can follow The Royal Half on Twitter at @TheRoyalHalf